


No one running by your side

by nebulein



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Insight, POV Sam Winchester, Post-Series, Sam-Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-04
Updated: 2006-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-03 07:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4092649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulein/pseuds/nebulein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Dean the fight has begun once again. For Sam it ended eleven years ago, that one night still etched into his memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No one running by your side

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: don't own nothing, I'm just playing, please don't sue.
> 
> Thanks to ￼exsequar, ￼theaeblackthorn, and ￼autumnfades for beta. Written for the WinconUK CD. Title stolen from [Bruce Springsteen's Blood Brothers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE45GT9Z9kE). I could listen to that song on repeat all day long.

Sam looks out of the window and sees the black pick-up his brother’s driving these days turning out of their driveway, tail lights flashing in what seems a last goodbye before it speeds up, racing down the street and out of sight. For Dean the fight has begun once again. For Sam it ended eleven years ago, that one night still etched into his memory. Even now it still comes back to him, haunting him at night, and Sam has stopped counting the times he’s jerked awake, drenched in sweat and breathing hard. Stopped counting the times when the only thing able to soothe him back to sleep was her hands, warm and gentle touch on his chest, soft whispers in his ears. Stopped counting the times he couldn’t go back to sleep at all, the times he spent the night standing in the doorframe of his girls’ room, watching them sleep, making sure they were alright.

Sam remembers the panic that took hold of him as their six month birthdays were approaching. He spent the two weeks leading up to each of them with frantic preparations, making sure the house was as safe as he could make it. At first Michelle had smiled at him, but when he had taken to painting a devil’s trap on the ceiling of Diana’s nursery they’d gotten in a huge fight. It ended with him begging her to let him do it, trying to make her understand that he _needed_ to do this. He remembers spending the nights of their girls’ six month birthdays with them cradled in his arms, watching the three wall clocks in their room with barely covered terror, his muscles almost trembling with tautness, his senses on hyper alert. The nights passed without incident, but the relief he’d expected never came. Although his initial anticipation wore off, he never quite stopped waiting for something to happen.

Dean visits them once or twice a year. Sam knows that for each time Dean knocks at their door, he’s in town at least two more, making sure they’re doing alright without stopping by. It reminds Sam of his Stanford time, when Dean or Dad would watch over him from a distance. Sometimes Sam has the feeling of someone’s eyes on him, imagines seeing Dean’s pick-up driving by. Michelle laughed and told him they were figments of his imagination, but Sam knows Dean is still looking out for him and it makes him feel a little safer, _protected,_ so he doesn’t press the issue.

Their girls love uncle Dean, who tells them funny stories and always makes sure to send them a little something for Christmas. Sam has invited him more than once to spend the holidays with them, but Dean always waves off and mutters some excuse about jobs and things he has to do.

They spend the evenings on the back patio, drinking beer and talking about their lives, Dean’s hunts and Sam’s family, falling into long silences in between. It always makes Sam’s stomach turn into a tight knot to see Dean go, the final embodiment of a lonely hunter, but he knows that a life with Dean on the road would’ve eventually broken him. Sometimes he’s surprised Dean’s still alive and kicking. Sometimes he thinks Dean’s just carved out for the road when Sam wasn’t. It’s the way things are. Sam’s turning thirty-four now and there are wrinkles on his face, but he has a family and a home, his wife Michelle and his two girls, Diana and Mariet, and on some days he almost manages to forget about his past, coming as close to normal as possible.

On other days, the same three days each year, he allows himself to take a day off work and drive to their lake house, spending the day wandering around the woods, visiting the places he calls theirs. Their graves are somewhere else, places Sam saw only once in his life, each one of them miles away, each one in a different state. Their places here are where he comes to mourn. The weeping willow he planted in memory of Mary, the little stone pile that protects Jessica’s candle, Dad’s old truck hidden in a rickety shack Sam cobbled together himself. Sam spends the days in silence, choked up with too many words he never got to say. _I’m sorry._ Sometimes he’ll find traces, the remnants of fire, little heaps of salt that let him know Dean was there. They always make him cry in sorrow.

He’ll call Dean on his birthday, each year feeling a little worse afterwards. Dean never calls on Sam’s.

Sam knows he’s lucky Dean visits them at all.

“Daddy, Daddy, Mom said I should call you. Dinner’s ready!” Mariet, his youngest, is running towards him. He turns around and hoists her on his arm. She’s starting to get heavy, and in a few more years she won’t allow him to lift her anymore, but for now she hooks an arm around his neck and holds on, smiling at him brightly. He smiles back, and gently pushes a sassy ringlet of her golden blond hair behind her ear.

“Well, we’d better not let Mommy wait then.”

Sam peers back out of the window one last time, looking down the empty road, before he turns around with Mariet on his arms and heads into the kitchen. It smells delicious.


End file.
